I wasn’t going to recap Boys Planet (and technically, I’m still not doing it), but I’m watching the series and thought others might appreciate a spot to discuss it. So, each week I plan on dumping a few of my random thoughts about the show. Again, this will not be a full, detailed recap. But, if you have something you want to mention make sure to include it in the comments!
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode One
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Two
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Three
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Four
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Five
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Six
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Seven
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Eight
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Nine
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Ten
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Eleven
The Finale!
I’ve never done a post on the finale of a Produce-esque show before and I’m wondering how much I’ll have to say. Usually, there’s less to write about as these shows grow closer to the end — despite their ever-increasing run-time. Mostly, I’ll comment on the new songs and what I think of the newly formed group.
“Here I Am,” Redux
This was a zesty performance of the signal song, wasn’t it? I liked all the added breakdowns and the dramatic production, but some weird audio issues made the sound feel like it was filtering in and out (at least on the source I was watching).
The Lack of Editing
These shows move sooooo slooooowwwwwwly when they’re aired live. All the awkward pauses make for a very low-energy broadcast, which is really weird considering this is the grand finale. Seriously… half of the show was just Minhyun looking down at his cue cards in silence. They really need to spice up the pace!
ZEROBASEONE
Well… this group name is made up of consonants and vowels.
That’s all I’ve got.
(Hilariously, the first member announced for debut couldn’t even remember the name)
Jelly Pop
I mentioned last week that this sounded like it would be my favorite song of the series. That’s a very low bar to cross, but the prediction turned out to be true. It’s definitely most closely-aligned to my personal taste and will be going into my music library after today. The performance was fun and upbeat and the guys sounded good.
Now, the question is: what style of music will be created in the Zero Base One laboratory? Let’s hope for something fresh and exciting!
Hot Summer
You are not allowed to call a song “Hot Summer” and make it sound this tame! The track is fine, but does nothing different than 99% of current boy group fare. The melody has very little range or personality, though I appreciate the brief reference to f(x)’s classic of the same name.
Not Alone
This is the standard ballad/mid-tempo “thanks for voting for us” song they always perform on the finale. This one’s a snooze, unfortunately.
Introducing… ZB1!
Members were revealed one by one, culminating in the final group:
9. Han Yu Jin
8. Kim Ji Woong
7. Kim Kyu Vin
6. Kim Tae Rae (yay!)
5. Park Gun Wook
4. Ricky
3. Seok Matthew (yay!)
2. Sung Han Bin (yay!)
1. Zhang Hao
Overall, I’m pleased with the line-up. I’m kind of shocked that Han Bin wasn’t first place, though the votes were very close. After ranking first place the entire series, the fact that he won’t finish at the top kind of messes with my brain’s need for continuity.
The only person I’m upset didn’t make it is Keita, who was one of my favorites and very talented. I’m not sure if Ciipher are even together anymore, but hopefully he can take this newfound notoriety back to the group and find post-show success.
Also, nearly half of this group is from Yuehua Entertainment?? How much pull does this agency have? Or, are they just really good at casting trainees?
As usual, I’m more concerned with the music that will eventually come from this group. Given these shows’ track records, I’m not holding my breath. But, it would be nice if they found (and stuck to) a niche of their own.
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
ricky made it into the group yaaaaayyyyy
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I’m excited for this group. There’s a lot of talent in there. Hopefully they’ll have a strong songwriting team behind them.
I really enjoyed how this finale felt like the final chapter of a boy-meets-boy love story. Zhang Hao and Shanbin holding hands, walking together into the sunset … I mean, up those stairs 🙂
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Yes… it was giving total wedding vibes 😅
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also im upset how lee daeul’s popularity quickly faded and his rankings dropped right after the first few episodes. man was literally riding on cloud 9 with a fanbase before the premiere just for that cloud to dissipate in such a short time
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The power of Mnet’s editing leaves me in awe. Daeul experienced such a sudden drastic surge in hate, and for what – something that all the trainees involved, and a few others, have come out to say was aired out of context? I don’t doubt that people were waiting to jump on him no matter what, for ranking so high at the start (and I do think he isn’t debut-ready yet, though he seems to be a very sweet kid) but the way people easily switched up on him was sad.
And that was something that was repeated throughout the season, though various trainees experienced it in different ways – Krystian and Jingxiang faced the brunt of it, though Matthew (and Ricky to an extent) managed to get through it unscathed. I don’t have any thoughts about the actual situations that went down with all of them, but it was sad to see the extent of hate because of certain editing choices and the fact that some trainees were noticeably worse off than others, because they didn’t have enough fans to still ‘defend’ them, was also sad.
((anyway, did you see Seunghwan’s Instagram post from the finale, with him re-enacting that infamous side-eye moment with Daeul? Lol))
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I’m also upset that Keita didn’t make it but most of all I’m so upset about JAY. He was my number one contestant from the beginning.😭 You could literally see him being slowly erased from the series as the show went on and they even edited him out during his high note in Over Me 😒. I think someone did the math that Jay and Keita were almost or were in the top 3 for international views but were both DEAD LAST out of everyone in Korean votes. And you know the most annoying thing? Korean people weren’t voting for Keita because he’s “too short”. Yep…
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Besides those two I was almost pleasantly surprised by the lineup as there’s usually a lot more chaos and it at least wasn’t as bad as the Kep1er one (shudders). I to this day still haven’t gotten the hype over Gyuvin but man if we could’ve swapped him for Keita (and maybe someone else for Jay) this lineup would’ve been PERFECT. But I guess we can’t all win. For more positives I LOVE that Gunwook made it as it was looking pretty 50/50 for him and honestly I would’ve taken Shanbin or Zhanghao as centre so I’m both happy and sad for them (maybe co-centres in the future?)
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“You must be *this* tall to ride Zero Base One at Boys Planet”
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It’s crazy that Keita’s height of all things played a role in his voting base considering how many popular male idols are short! But, I guess that shows how deeply ingrained some of the beauty/visual standards of Kpop are when it comes to putting together a group.
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I’m not a fan of the name. I was hoping for Ec1ipse, but no-one asked me.
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NO ACTUALLY I agree like out of all the names (besides Bep1er hehe) Ec1ipse was actually the one I liked the best. Like it just makes sense you’ve got the two planets theme and the dumb 1 thing all in a nice little simple word. Honestly, I was one of the few people that actually like Kep1er from the beginning so I thought suuuuuuuuuuurely they’ll come up with another vaguely-planet-lore consistent one. Nope, ZeroBase1…
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ok but props to zhanghao for being the very first non-korean center in an mnet survival show group….like bro legit made history (and more than anything its a glorious middle finger to mnets sinophobia AND long overdue payback for xiaoting and sakura getting done dirty in their respective groups final lineups)
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also somewhat unrelated but in chinese gay circles the numbers 1 and 0 are used as slang terms for top and bottom…..so im sure u can imagine the connotation zerobase1 would have w chinese viewers. no wonder shuaibo and jinxin were laughing their asses off
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ZB1 in Korean has a similar sound to “planter”or “postman”, so it’s kinda hard for them to stop laughing after hearing the name.
“When Cherry Blossoms Fade” would remain one of the best finale songs on survival shows. Wonder what kind of song they will have for Fantasy Boys…
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Thank you for providing good summaries of the episodes Nick! I am curious to see what direction ZEROBASE1 takes. I’m sure the album sales are going to be out of this world, but I hope their commercial success is backed up by good music.
For me, the biggest question left is this: What happens to Hui, Keita and Woonggi? Ideally, their companies would leverage the show to either launch a new group or revitalize a current group. But I don’t know if I trust Cube, Rain Company, or Wakeone to leverage Boys Planet based on their past track record.
Sidenote: I noticed Yuehua had a large presence on this show. I wonder if they are going to try and debut a new group considering Tempest is only a year old or if they will wait and hope that people will still care about Boys Planet a few years from now.
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SN: I am aware Wakeone will be managing ZEROBASE1, but I know that the company has faced complaints about their overall promotion of acts (including TO1 – Woonggi’s former group).
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I think they will wait to get those four back because if you add Seungeon as main vocal, Yunseo as lead vocal, and Ollie as rapper, that’s a pretty great lineup. Those last three guys are relatively young too so they’ll still be within age to debut in 2.5 years. (Brian should be dropped because he has the least potential.)
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Although I’m happy with this lineup, I’m also disappointed with this lineup. There were too many debut worthy trainees on this show. The trainees from rank 10-18 could easily be their own group.
And, music wise, I feel like the show set the standards pretty high. Although they were slightly generic and didn’t venture out much, they were still pretty damn good.
Also, that name is just horrible. ZeroBaseOne, if they insisted on keeping the number 1 in the name, Zero One would have been better but even that’s too similar to WannaOne.
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Happened to get into this one, too, so in case anyone’s curious:
Jelly Pop and Hot Summer stages were actually livestreamed, Here I Am and the stream intro were not (and someone messed up in every Here I Am take, so they either stitched them together or were smart about camera selection). No, the vocals were not even 1% live — I expected at least some “hey!”s or maybe a partially-live ballad, but no dice. Gyuvin fell out of his chair every time anything remotely interesting happened. We were sitting in that auditorium for somewhere around six hours, but we got to keep our phones this time. People were chanting for Yujin at half of the rank announcements, which felt kind of mean to all the other trainees. Park Hanbin’s smile is visible from space (or at least the back of the edge of the third floor). The crowd laughed every time someone said Zero Base One. Most of us were pretty shocked that more than two foreigners squeezed their way in, and it looked like Zhang Hao buffered for like ten seconds, then looked off stage and tried to confirm with the MC and production that they didn’t misspeak when they announced him as first. Finally, no! Those dramatic pauses are not any more bearable in real life! My goodness!!
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Whoa, thank you for sharing! I can’t begin to imagine what it was like to sit through those long pauses in the stadium lol – it was aggravating enough trying to wait and not be able to speed it up as I was watching live. I was wondering if the ballad at least was live to some extent, sad to hear it wasn’t. Gyuvin’s reactions have been hilarious, can’t wait to see more of him in variety.
I was really rooting for Park Hanbin through the show, and it sucks that he didn’t make it in. Hoping him and his incredible talents (and smile) can find success somewhere else soon – he deserves it!
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Yuehua might not be that big in Korea but they are big in China. I’m a bit baffled that half of them are Yuehuans, though.
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“Yuehuans” sounds like it’s from Star Wars 😅😆
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This is the first time I follow a produce show actually (at least the final episodes) but I agree with you, Nick, OMG the pace. The final was spread across 4 hours??? I had to get up for a drink or a snack every hour 😀
I’m gutted Jay didn’t make it. I think he had the best possible vocals out of the lot.
Am I the only one who loved “Say my name” ? Maybe a bit corny, but that chorus got stuck in my head instantly.
I’m curious to see how well this group does. I’m not a fan of groups that promote for 2 years, as it just seems that the label is cashing in on the hype of the show and don’t care at all about the quality of the music, but we shall see…. I think it’s quite a strong line up! Sung Hanbin is a total visual magnet.
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Jelly Pop is such a fun song! The beginning of Hot Summer reminds me of Ko Ko Bop and I can’t remember anything else about it.
Zhang Hao getting P01 is the most fairytale ending that Mnet could never have orchestrated. I would have voted for him from beginning to end if I hadn’t uninstalled the Mnet app in a fit of rage after my 1-pick was eliminated.
Otherwise, it’s unfortunate that Keita and Phanbin didn’t make it. The interim rankings really screwed with them, as well as Jay. I feel lukewarm about most of the rest of the lineup but I’ll probably follow because of Haobin and Matthew.
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I know nothing about this show but I love Jelly Pop!
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I cannot get enough of it! The chorus just tickles your ear in the best way possible!
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Well, that was another Produce (and by now we all know it was basically Produce) season that I wasn’t planning to watch but somehow ended up getting sucked into! Most of my favs didn’t actually make the lineup (Park Hanbin, Keita, Seungeon, Junhyeon etc.) but oh well. The group does have a pretty great and talented lineup and all I can hope for is that the debut takes notes from the success of Say My Name charting in Korea and Jelly Pop basically being the talk of the town right now.
Not really related to Boys Planet but Nick, have you watched Peak Time? I’m not fully caught up although that ended last week too, but I’ve been absolutely loving it. The groups there are getting a lot of great spotlight, including some that I knew beforehand and others I’ve come to really like, and there are some really good songs in the bunch of original songs that they’ve had in the last couple of rounds.
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I’m calling them Moonbase Alpha and reserving judgement until I hear the debut.
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No hate to taerae but mnet revealing the interim rank was kinda unfair. If mnet really wants to reveal the rank, they should at least show everyone’s rank ala GP999. Also why don’t they reveal total votes (without the 50% korean 50% global) for each trainees after the show ended like how they did with GP999?
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